Night of the Nazi Zombies (8 page)

Chard, Humphreys and Gardner had no cover to make use of so simply ran and ran fast.
 
As they had practiced many times before they zigzagged, making it difficult to track them in case anybody had them in their gun sites.
 
The men carried their weapons low and at the ready.
 
As they reached the parachute they hit the ground, going prone and making them as difficult as possible to hit.
 
Waiting low to the ground the only sound was the heavy breathing of the men that had just completed their dash.
 
Humphreys and Gardner lifted their bolt-action rifles to their shoulders, scanning the cover ahead down the rifle barrels.
 
Chard, carrying his Sten looked first to his left, then right, spotting movement where he expected to see Sergeant Smith.
 
Good, that meant their flank was being covered.
 
He looked back behind him towards Lieutenant Harvey, there was no sign of them.
 
All looked good so far.
 
With one last check he lifted himself up quietly and slipped forwards towards the parachute.
 

Back at the tree line, Lieutenant Harvey and the rest of the men watched the unfolding reconnaissance unfold in front of them.
 
Archer was lying prone, his Bren gun cocked and aimed directly at the building.
 
The Bren was a modified version of a Czechoslovak-designed light machine gun, the ZB vz. 26.
 
The British version of the weapon featured a distinctive curved box magazine, conical flash hider and quick change barrel and had proved to be an accurate and effective light machine gun.
 
Three of the men were also in prone positions, each man watching the horizon with their Enfield rifles.
 
The remainder watched their flanks and rear.
 
The Lieutenant lifted his field glasses, watching the scouting party as they approached the parachute.

Chard was now at the parachute.
 
It was pretty clear that the dark object that was attached was simply a dead soldier.
 
What surprised Chard more than anything though was that the dead man was not British but American.
 
Searching the body, but being careful not to move it, Chard spotted the shape of the Screaming Eagle.
 
He sighed, these men were his American equivalent and it saddened him to see the body.
 
He signalled to Corporal Humphreys who crept over to check the body.
 
Humphreys took the man’s dog tags and his weapons and then checked for any obvious injuries.
 
The man’s legs were in an awkward angle and this gave him a good idea as to what might have happened.

“Looks like he broke his neck in the fall, he definitely came down hard, look,” said Humphreys as he gestured to the dead man’s legs.

The broken legs was a sure fire way of telling the man had hit the ground too fast.
 
Whilst looking at the body a strange, creaking sound came from the trees a short distance away.
 
Humphreys and Chard glanced at each other and then back to the sound.
 
There was a metallic click.
 
Without hesitation the two men rolled back towards Gardner.
 
The quiet night was interrupted by the clatter of semi-automatic rifle fire.
 
Luckily the reactions of the two men had saved them from the initial rounds.
 
They kept their heads down in what cover they could find in the open field.
 

Lieutenant Harvey snapped into action as soon as the fire started.
 
Calling out to the men he ordered covering fire.
 
Archer opened up with the powerful .303 inch Bren gun, firing short burst of four to five bullets at a time.
 
His companion riflemen put a handful of rounds into the building and trees nearby.
 
Whilst the overwatch unit kept up the covering fire the three men caught out in the open field made their way back to the Lieutenant.
 
By the time the Bren gun had expended another magazine of thirty rounds they were back into the cover of the trees.

Lieutenant Harvey was the first to speak.

“Okay Corporal, what did you find?”

“It’s a paratrooper, Sir.
 
Here,” Chard handed the dog tags to the officer.

“The man was a private in the 101st Airborne,” he added.

The unit kept up light fire but there was no sign of life from the building or the small wooded area.
 
With a simple hand signal the men ceased fire, each one carefully watching for signs of the enemy.

“Who is that, Sir?” asked one of the riflemen, pointing out to their right flank.

Lieutenant Harvey gasped, then realised he was looking at Sergeant Smith who was making swift progress across the field towards the body.
 
There was no sign of Trent, presumably he was covering Smith.
 
As Smith rushed over the field he kept his head low but did his best to maintain his speed.
 
He needed to reach the body, but more importantly, he needed to keep close enough to speak to whoever had been shooting at the soldiers.
 
Just feet before he reached his target a stream of bullets forced him to the ground.
 
The sound was definitely the same as before and simply confirmed to Smith what he had been thinking for the past two minutes.
 
That weapon was not German!

Back in England, Sergeant Smith and the other men had been introduced to all manner of equipment on top of the weapons they normally trained with.
 
Unlike the regular infantry, the airborne soldiers could only make use of the equipment and ammunition that they took with them.
 
Once behind enemy lines they would have to face an unknown number of enemies at any time.
 
Because of this it was imperative that they knew how to use foreign equipment and also to make use of ammunition that they could strip from them or their supplies.
 
Because of this Smith had practiced with the German Kar98 bolt-action rifle, various 9mm submachine guns like the MP40 and an array of pistols and machineguns.
 
His personal favourite had been the captured MG42 machinegun, a weapon that spat out bullets at a prodigious rate.
 
What really got Smith’s attention though, as he lay prone in this field in Northern France, was that the report from this weapon sounded nothing like the British or German weapons he had experimented with.
 
This sounded just like the M1 carbine that fired a distinctive, reduced-power .30 cartridge.
 
What was even more interesting though was that this carbine was widely issued to infantry officers, and American paratroopers.
 
It was certainly not a weapon he would expect to find in this part of the country.
 
Not yet anyway.

Smith decided to take a chance and called out to the building.

“Sergeant Smith here of the British 6th Airborne Division.”

There was silence, perhaps the man inside had simply taken the dead man’s weapon and had turned it on the British soldiers.
 

“Oh shit!” exclaimed Smith to himself at this realisation, he might have just made a big mistake.

He was in an exposed position right here and was a sitting duck if whoever was inside decided he was not somebody to have a chat with.
 
Before he could dwell on his decision any longer a voice answered him.

“Oh yeah, sonny?”
 

There was a pause for a few seconds, neither of the men prepared to go any further till they knew a little more.

The voice continued, “Flash?”

The manner was sarcastic, not the serious and direct tone he was used to.
 
He thought for a brief moment before smiling to himself, “An American, of course!” thought Smith.
 
Luckily for Smith the British Airborne forces had been informed of the Americans’ passwords and vice versa prior to the operation, as it was assumed some troops would end up mixed in the first hours of the mission.
 

Smith replied, “Thunder”, but didn’t get up.

There was still one more part and without it he was not going to move from his position.

After a delay that seemed like hours the man inside finally spoke.

“Welcome buddy!”

The door to the building swung open yet nobody came out.
 
Smith lifted himself to a crouching position and signalled first to Trent who was providing overwatch and then to Lieutenant Harvey to ensure they didn’t fire.
 
After receiving confirmation by hand signal he turned back to the building.

“It’s okay, you can come out, we’re on the same side,” spoke Smith.
 

A shape appeared through the doorway, the man glanced around and then stepped out towards Smith and the dead paratrooper.
 
He signalled to Smith, beckoning him to come closer.
 
Smith did so and moved to the American.
 
The two men went inside, using the building and the darkness it provided to give them cover in their exposed position in the middle of the field.

The American spoke first, “Captain Bradley Scott, 101st Airborne, and you are Sergeant Smith?”

“Yes, Sir,” answered the Sergeant, “Sergeant Smith of the 6th Airborne Division, 2nd Battalion Oxford & Buckingham Light infantry.
 
What happened to you, Sir?”

“I got my ass shot off, that’s what happened to me, Sergeant.
 
My unit was supposed to drop together but we hit flak and ended up all over this area.”

“Your man outside?” asked Smith.

“Yeah, that’s Polanski, he was dead when I found him here.
 
I was checking his body when you guys arrived.
 
It looks like he had chute problems, bad way to go.
 
How about you guys?”

“We hit trouble of our own.
 
Our glider was hit on the way down and we had to ditch short of the bridges.
 
We came down right on a Jerry position, on top of the bloody AA gun!”

“Oh shit!”

“We’re down to fourteen men and all the equipment we could carry.”

“Well, I might as well tag along with you guys for now, at least until I can find more of my unit.”

Smith nodded in agreement, “Come with me, I’ll introduce you to my CO, Lieutenant Harvey.”

The two men dashed back across the field, keeping low and made straight for the British position.

Lieutenant Harvey saluted to the American, the Captain ignored the gesture and started talking.

“Your sergeant has explained your situation to me.”

He looked around at the rest of the unit.
 
He paused for a moment, obviously considering his options.

“I suggest I join your unit until I can make contact with the rest of my unit.”

Harvey, a little taken back by the bullish attitude of the American paused for a moment before launching into a tirade.

“We’ve just managed to get out of a pretty hairy situation with Jerry and the next thing we’re being shot at by an American!
 
I think you have some explaining to do!”

The Captain, looking nonplussed, replied with a distinct lack of patience.

“You’re kidding, right?” replied the American, before realising the British officer was being serious.
 
He turned back to him to explain.

“Look, we couldn’t see each other, you tried to get to me, I fired, you fired, and nobody got hurt.
 
It’s wartime, get over it… Lieutenant!”

Smith intervened in what he saw as a pointless round of rutting.

“It isn’t going to stay dark forever, we need to get to the bridge.
 
That way we can get on with our mission and the Captain can find out where the rest of his men are.”
 
Smith glanced at both men whilst speaking.

“Of course,” spoke Harvey in a forced but conciliatory manner.
 
He showed his map to the Captain.

“We’re making our way to the bridge here,” he pointed at their objective.

“Have you seen any enemy movements in this direction?” he marked the space between their current position and the bridge.

“Yeah, I saw some kind of action going on there on my way down.
 
We’d better get a shift on if we’re going to help,” said the Captain.

The American nodded discretely to the Sergeant.
 
There was an understanding.

Private Clarke approached, interrupting the group.

“We found a few more bodies in the woods, looks like more Americans.”

Harvey responded without thinking, “Looks like your boys got hit when they landed as well.”

The Captain didn’t look impressed, he answered Clarke directly and somewhat impatiently.

“Where are they?”

“Follow me, I’ll take you to them,” answered Clarke.

The private led the men to a group of tree stumps close to the tree line, there the bodies of three Americans were sprawled out on the ground.
 
Bending down the men examined the bodies for evidence of what had happened.
  
The first was that of a paratrooper, similar to the body discovered near the building.
 
The dead man was still holding his rifle yet his body was covered in scores of minor wounds as though he had been struck many times with sharp objects, perhaps falling through the woodland canopy.
 
Smith pointed out the wounds to the hands and neck, there were multiple punctures on the exposed flesh and presumably significant bleeding as the body was drenched in blood.
 
The second man was also an American paratrooper, this one was different though.
 
He was unarmed and had significant blood dripping from around his mouth.
 
There were obvious bullet wounds in his arms, chest and throat.
 
These two men had definitely died from different causes.